To think train prices are crazy? Just spent eye watering sum London to Edinburgh

[AbsentmindedWoman]

Almost £200 for two adults return. We are going next week, so it is fairly last minute, plus I know it's a lengthy journey, but woah.

Train prices seem pretty haphazard to me depending on the line.

Before the railways were privatised, were prices a lot better and more consistent?

Sound bloody cheap to me!

£100 for a 4 hour journey?

The last time I went to Edinburgh by train I got a good first class deal which was about £57 from London, and then I flew back to Heathrow for a similar price. But that was first class one way and flying the other.

Trains are stupidly expensive in the UK. And you don't get what you pay for, they're rubbish as well.

That's not bad for two during the festival - Edinburgh trains are packed during August, so I'm quite impressed you got returns for under £100pp.
You can grab better bargains now with advanced tickets than you could before privatisation, but you pay a LOT more if you want flexibility and/or to travel at peak times.

Through ticketing is usually a lot more expensive, especially if you change between train companies, because the advance fares are often only valid on one operator.

There are tricks though - breaking the journey at an intermediate station so you're travelling on two tickets (even if you stay on the same train) can save ££ if you get lucky. If you do have to change trains it's often a lot cheaper to buy two separate tickets rather than a through one.

That's pretty good for next week. You can save £££ if you book 12 weeks in advance.

It's nearly 400 miles, I think, so that works out at about 25p per mile. Not bad.

There are cheap deals, if you book in advance and can be flexible about when you travel. Leaving it to nearly the last minute, to a super-popular destination, at peak holiday time, the cheap deals will have all gone.

Edinburgh to Glasgow is £24 peak time so I think under £100 to London is really pretty reasonable!

I think that's cheap, esp given it's festival time in Edinburgh. much cheaper than a flight, and right into city centre too.

are you staying in a hotel - what are the prices like for that?!

Getting around on generally is unreasonable hard. Roads are way way to small/not where they should be. Fuel over taxed. Flying is very time consuming due to inefficient methods of checking in, needing to cteck in x amount of hours prior to boarding etc. Trains are extremely expensive because they are more or less monopolies. The state is incompetent at running infastructure but due to the monopolistic nature of infastructure it is difficult to privatise these things properly. The best solution would be to fully privatise and broaden scope for claiming compensation in tort when things go wrong. For example, a lot of the roads in Britain are downright dangerous. People repeatedly die in the same places and the government does nothing, at most the add a barrier or lower the speed limit. If the roads were privatised then it would be much easier to sue for loss of life resulting from dangerous road layouts (the courts openly bias in the government's favour for policy reasons).

If a company was slapped with a million pound fine for a death on am inadequate Road they would just move the road to avoid another fine.

But again cost would be an issue so you would have to make sure that different companies are responsible to alternative routes.

You're going from one end of the country to the other!

Shame that the government can't manage on its own but what can you do. The state is top big to trust to manage necessary services.

I would be inclined to fly.

Yanbu. Always shocked by the price of taking the train! Thought of taking a train from London to Brighton and it was 4 times what I was expecting.

You're going from one end of the country to the other!

You're not - You're going from the south of England to the south of Scotland. Two countries.

Did you get a Two together railcard? £100 each sounds very reasonable for such a long journey. How much would it be to fly?
I love trains, we go all over the UK by train and if you book in advance with a railcard it’s not bad at all.

I think that short, local journeys are very reasonable but long trips? It's cheaper to drive, especially if there is more than one of you.

Yes sure, you can book in advance and get some cheap deals but what if you don't know you're going until the last minute? It's ridiculous.

I really wanted to get the train to Scotland recently rather than drive (Yorkshire to Glasgow) but I couldn't find any way of doing it for under £200. Whereas it costs me a tank of petrol at £40 in the car.

And the two together railcard is stupid - it means you always have to travel with the same person!

@Chocolatedeficitdisorder Edinburgh's not in the South of Scotland!

Got a great deal on accommodation, booked last week.

Flying can look cheaper at first but once you factor in travelling to and from both airports to city centres, and having to be at the airport a certain amount of time beforehand, the price becomes similar and the mode of transport not as convenient.

You're not - You're going from the south of England to the south of Scotland. Two countries.

True!

That sounds cheap to me!

The two together railcard would have paid for itself twice over on that journey so it’s not ‘stupid’ as someone posted.

£200 for 2 adults return = £100 each return = £50 one way each.
At 300 (ish) miles, I don't think that's too bad

I recently spent £200 on just one return York-London, so I think you've done pretty well - but yes, they can be eye-wateringly expensive!